Civ 7 looks like it will solve a lot of problems from civ 6

[Konzi]

Going to be frank, very long yap post, this is an open warning that there will be an immense amount of yapping about my personal thoughts, I just wanted to get it off my chest so if you don't care for it, here is your warning.

Preface: While there are obvious problems with civ 6, as there is in nearly every civ game, this is predominantly an opinion and preference piece, something I find boring, or ugly in civ 6 you may find cool or enjoyable, and that's fine, we can have our different preferences as both be happy (unlike some people in these forums who think every civ game that isn't a carbon copy of civ 4 is bad). There are also some things that will barely be touched on. There are mechanics completely new to civ 7 like the age transition. Simply put, we don't know enough about it yet (I feel like we should be given more info on it) so it wont come up all too often here.

Further, I prefer 5 over 6. I've put hundreds of hours into 6, I've beaten 6 with every civ, and I'm new to 5. I just want to disclose this early and my biases.

Surface Level Issues: There are a lot of surface level issues with Civ 6, and a lot of them are going to be subjective by nature, but for the sake of giving a total overview I'm going to talk about them anyway.

- Terrain Graphics: Most contention in 6 seems to be over cartoony leader designs, that will be discussed further down, but personally one thing I disliked the most was the terrain design. There's detail to appreciate sure, the natural wonders are gorgeous, as are the weather effects. However the terrain was always way too bright and ugly to me. You could go from the really nice looking oceans to a hideous bright grind grassland. Civ 7 seems to have addressed this head on. I really don't need to spend much time on that, you can just look at any of the terrain screenshots and compare it to civ 6, civ 7 is gorgeous to look at, and I'm not going to be pissed off looking at the terrain, not to mention the new levels of elevation added (inland cliffs, slopes etc)

- Leader Art style: This is one of the most contentious things about civ 6, and has been brought up for civ 7 too. Personally I'm of two minds, because some leaders (Basil) look perfectly fine, but others (Jao, although to their credit Jao III was pretty ugly in real life too) are just out right ugly. I've never super cared for the topic, but some leaders can be quite jarring to look at. Civ 7 seems to address this and go back to a similar leader design philosophy to Civ 5. Did they succeed in that? For some leaders sure, however like with civ 6, at launch leader designs have changed drastically (look up pre release civ 6 Teddy, it's haunting) so I reserve my thoughts on the leader designs until the game comes out. That being said the critique of leaders looking Cartoonish has always been a dumb one. Civ has always been quite the cartoony game, Civ 5 was an outlier in trying to go for a more serious look, go back to Civ 4 and 3 and look at those leader designs. They may not be as extreme as some of 6's leaders but you can see the similarities quite clearly.

More Core Issues: These are things I find are core problems to civ 6, and why I found it extremely boring. Funny enough, and some people may not like hearing this, civ 5 and civ 6 do share a lot of the same problems. However they share them for completely different reasons (which DOES matter).

- Civ Blandness Civ 6: A core issue with 6 is how bland Civ's felt. On one level it's not completely a bad thing, and in multiplayer it's a really good thing. It helps keep civ's balanced (except for Babylon, but Babylon has been completely broken 90% of the time it's included in every civ game, so they don't count ever), which means in competitive play, you aren't guaranteed a win or loss based on your civ, and you had just enough uniqueness to where you can enjoy your civ's bonuses. That however is different in single player, with the exception of a deity play through (That being said, that's another point against, if you need to play the hardest difficulty to have fun, and you can't on the normal difficulty, then theirs a serious game play issue with the game). That there are very clear right or wrong answers. While on the surface there's more complexity with placing districts, planning on where to put wonders etc, after a point it becomes extremely dull, because there is always a right or wrong answer. "Campuses gain the most buffs from here, so I will put it here", theirs no variety and means in city management, it's almost the identical gameplay among every civ in placing districts and city building, and since it's the same experience over and over, it gets bland, repetitive and boring. This is also seen in how civs are designed. Civ's with a unique district will get it, and it's cool, but the same district issue applies. They also get a unique unit, which can be cool, but you only get to use it for a small portion of the game before it gets outdated and replaced, if you even get to use it at all, which in turn makes the game boring and makes your civ feel less special. Civ 7 and it's rubberbanding, making ageless civ unique quarters, being able to upgrade your unique units through out the age seems to be a way to address this, and on other game play elements, from what we know, looks like it will solve a lot of these core problems, but we will obviously just have to wait and see. Another issue with Civ 6 civs is how unbalanced early game civs are. While they loose what makes them unique early on, Civ 6 and civ 5 are games with huge snowball effects, so when you get an early bonus, or can get science buildings, culture buildings etc early, if you play semi competently, the ai will never really be able to catch up long term.

- Civ Blandness Civ 5: Civ 5 has this issue, but unlike Civ 6, it isn't as noticeable, in part due to game play reasons. Unlike in Civ 6, in 5, happiness matters. While negative amenities in singleplayer has effects you can practically ignore, in civ 5 happiness has effects empire wide, and if it gets low enough, actively spawns rebels. Gold is, while easy to get if you know how to play the game, is always much scarcer then in civ 6, and with more building maintenance and unit maintenance, the game engages you more and makes you think. While in civ 6 building all your core buildings, and district buildings is an easy no brainer, in 5 you need to think about if you can afford it, and what the better option in your given circumstance is. There isn't a singular, instant correct answer. Roads need to be built, and cost maintenance, but cities get huge bonuses if they're connected, so can you afford it, is your builder safe to build it, etc. These things all district from like in Civ 6, your Civ can become quite generic quite quickly (With some exceptions). Civ 5 and civ 6 (and most civ games for that matter) share the issue of after a certain point, your civ is no longer unique and all you civ unique units and buildings are either outdated or irrelevant. You're playing Rome? Congrats it's the renaissance and your legions are outdated and every single civ's musket-men (with some exceptions) all look identical and you have 0 flavor! funny enough however this is less of an issue in 5 because Civ's aren't remotely balanced, like at all lmao. That and Civ bonuses don't railroad you into one playstyle. However, with the exception of Babylon (because of course) it isn't unbalanced to the point where you may as well reset because a certain civ is on the board. Poland for example, and it's ability adopt multiple policies is extremely powerful, and means you have a long term edge culturally. However unlike in civ 6, this doesn't railroad you into 1 single play style. With how policies work, you can choose to lean on buffs to religion, you can lean on policies to help you play tall, or play wide. You can lean on policies that make you bank from trading, or science etc. You aren't pushed into one single play style. Or like with Catherines Russia. With how Russian border expansion works you can play tall, and still cover more land then some of your neighbours who play wide, and with your unique building, you can lean heavy into culture. Or, with Catherines resource doubling ability, you can play very militaristic, since you more then likely will be able field a much larger army then most other civs. Or if you play Rome, you're heavily encouraged into early game warfare, but you can also play a peaceful wide game, with Agusutus leader trait of buildings already built in your capital being 25% cheaper to produce. Then there are actually unique Civ's like Venice. While civ 5 shares the same core issue with 6, it's harder to notice and goes overlooked because of the lack of balance, and the variety of gameplay offered with every civ, rather then being railroaded into one playstyle. Civ 7 looks like it's trying to mesh these things together, make civ's balanced, but promote a variety of playstyles and avoid railroading.

[grumble]

I played Civ V for nearly 15,000 hours but I have not played it since April 2020 because Civ 6 has much more breadth and depth.

As I always say, if you check Steamcharts you will always find that many more people are playing 6 than 5

Even though V was great, VI is better.

[Konzi]

oh don't get me wrong I agree, Civ 6 is much more popular, and I've even said as much in previous threads. This is just my personal thoughts, and where I think civ 7 is improving on

[Oaks]

An interesting read, thanks for taking the time to type it up.

To sum up my thoughts, all that I've seen about Civ 7 so far has impressed me and got me pretty psyched. It will likely address quite a few things that I didn't care for so much in some of the previous games.

[꧁꧂꧁꧂]

bro lay off the stimulants